210 Responses

There's a rule that I formulated a while ago that is a variant on Godwin's rule: The longer an online discussion goes on, the greater the probability that Pete Gorge will decide that it's all about him.

Thanks Craig. Yes it was poorly thought out wording there. Main point is that I think all those activities are wrong and need to be dealt with by whoever's responsible --- and trust me, I'm more than happy to say that means the Standard needs to do more.

_Funny, isn't it, how some of us Pakeha look to Maori telly for 'decent' investigative journalism..._The program over the last two Mondays at 8pm called Re-think is so well formatted, so well compered and very very interesting. The one last week was a look at the effect of polling and last night on global warming climate change. Strangely the three guests all agreed on climate change and discussed possible actions that we could take.

OK, I’ll put my hand up and say the story about Slater’s potential hit on Paddy came from me. It was during a break in the awards and I was outside chatting with Deborah Hill Cohne when I noticed this guy standing nearby on his lonesome. I asked where he was from, assuming he was there with another paper, and he said he was part of Slater’s crew – along with MP Jamie Lee Ross and J Collins’ husband. I mentioned we (Canvas magazine) had considered the idea of profiling of Cam and we got to talking – those guys were in pretty good spirits as you’d imagine. Anyway, it came up that they had a few hits up their sleeve for the campaign, Cunliffe and, for whatever reason, Paddy Gower. He was clearly pretty amped about the whole thing but the ceremonies began again and our chat ended. Now I worked with Paddy here for a while, he’s a mate, so I let him know about what was said, and I mentioned it in passing to Russell.It is what it is.

At least David Farrar has, to his credit, finally got out of utter denial mode but I'll believe it when I see it.

Likewise, I'll believe it when I see it and in the meantime take this 'moral awakening' with a pinch of salt, the Red Sea and a large chunk of Siberia. A lot of people have discovered their moral compasses now that the light of publicity has been shone directly on them, but that only begs the question about where they were earlier when Nicky Hager acknowledges that there were real principled conservatives who voiced their disgust long before it was cool.

You are right of course, but it will be difficult for Key to take this path. He apparently has a delicate within-party struggle on his hands, and he favours the more extreme right, where Collins is Queen diva.

There are at least two problems for the National Party with sacking Judith Collins right now.

It's admitting that there is truth to the "made-up stuff" in this "smear campaign" from a known "left-wing conspiracy theorist". And what if it doesn't stop the rot? What do they do when the leaks keep coming and Key himself is implicated. He would have to go too.

They can't sack JC over this. Not with five weeks until the election. They just need to hang on until after the election and hope it dies down enough.

If, as has been suggested, Judith Collins does have dirt on John Key, I don't think that would stop him sacking her now. If she were to leak damaging information about John Key a month before an election and were responsible for destroying National's election chances, she'd be destroying her own reputation as well as her party's. Career suicide.

Jared Savage wrote the post about Mr Liu and the $100,000 bottle of wine paid as a donation to the Labour Party. Even though it was wrong he never withdrew and apologised.I wonder if Cameron Slater was his source?

[REDACTED. That’s just nasty speculation about someone who’s not in a good state to be dealing with it right now. People, I’m going out to the supermarket and I’d be grateful if you could not post or link to stupid shit while I’m out. RB]

Fair point Russell, I shouldn’t be shooting from the hip. The point I meant to make is that the media sector doesn’t have many degrees of separation. And somehow the NPA is underestimating the fallout from Dirty Politics.

Or is the golden rule here that nobody shits where they eat, because a media culture that ...

Funny that, I had related but contrary thoughts of the media-political scene centred on WhaleOil when I pulled this top-stow piece of firewood out from the back of my woodshed just two days ago. Said shed is beside/under an overly productive feijoa tree very attractive to rats in autumn. I may be being unkind to the rats here, but the feijoa leftovers and ratshit seem very closely associated.

t’s admitting that there is truth to the “made-up stuff” in this “smear campaign” from a known “left-wing conspiracy theorist”.

Key could be very specific and confine it to what JC has admitted doing, and that would be perfectly feasible to run in parallel with his fanciful planet Key denunciations of Nicky Hagar.

Key will be doing an electoral calculation along with an assessment of what it would do to his personal power base within the party. He already sees English, a more centrist Nat, publicly shuffling in the wings. So while sacking Collins would get the Nats back on track prior to the election, it would help destabilise his within-party support.

Jared Savage wrote the post about Mr Liu and the $100,000 bottle of wine paid as a donation to the Labour Party. Even though it was wrong he never withdrew and apologised.

As a reporter, it's not his role to apologise, even for a total screaming fuckup like that. It's his editors' -- and I think Tim Murphy got himself way too deep in that one. It was utterly ungracious of the paper, although there was a very grudging correction.

I'd be more inclined to blame Savage for some of the language in that series -- particularly the constant reference to a staff dinner on a boat as "a riverboat trip".

I wonder if Cameron Slater was his source?

Given the context -- remember, there was an expedited OIA there too, and the Minister of Immigration lied about his handling of it -- I think it's a reasonable bet it came through similar channels. But the Herald itself was messed around on the OIA too.

Dunno how Duncan Garner reckons its a dirty campaignwe haven't seen any campaign yet

This is all damage control after the Hager torpedo took out the front of Key's Ship of Fools....

We may have to leave the wreck of the National Party's Golden Barge on the reef it foundered on while they were trying to take a short cut to power......meanwhile we have to deal with the toxic bilge that's washing up all over the country!

Because if some women could be raped and sexual predators are actively on the prowl at these “Princess Parties” with Farrar’s knowledge or even facilitation, the tasteful, gentlemanly thing to do is to keep quiet to maintain calm at the bowling club. Charming, Pete.

The book gives no indication that Farrar was part of the disgusting rape conversation in the book, even if he ran the parties. And I really don't think he would have been. He can be faulted for being matey with these guys, but I do not think he would be part of that kind of talk.

John Key looked a lot more composed this morning on Firstline with a much more coherent sounding story (although still the same flimsy talking points as ever).

I thought his performance was laughable and typical of his brush it off as if nothing untoward was going on approach, particularly his final answer to Michael Wilson's repeated questioning re the appropriateness of Collins's association with someone who goes to prostitutes to dig for dirt - he just started talking about the policy announcement on cycle paths and trails.

Actually, no, I can't in this case. Certainly according to the statistics, I can't claim any special knowledge, but I can say that at least I've been informed by the effect of rape that I have seen on close friends that I've known for decades after the events. Unfortunately I become angry, outraged and I even use rude words in reference to rapists.

If some narcissistic fool genuinely cannot tell the difference between the real evil of plotting a rape and the indiscretion of warning of persons plotting that, between blackmail and outrage at blackmail, then I don't think that they're the sort of person qualified to give moral instruction to me.

Whaleoil blogger Cameron Slater has described his man in the Beehive as "squeamish" and "gutless" for not fronting up to the media and talking about their relationship.

And:

Slater said his style of politics differed from many others. "I play politics like Fijians play rugby. My role is smashing your face into the ground.

"Politics is a nasty despicable game and its played by nasty despicable people. Where's the surprise in this?

"There's a lot of people want to be involved in politics but there are not very many people who want to say and do things. The vast majority of people are squeamish.

"The squeamish people are gutless, they run for the hills, they don't speak to the media. And you have to question that - look at all the people who are running and hiding and not talking where I'm the one speaking to the media. If it all comes down to me I'm prepared to front."

The book gives no indication that Farrar was part of the disgusting rape conversation in the book, even if he ran the parties. And I really don’t think he would have been. He can be faulted for being matey with these guys, but I do not think he would be part of that kind of talk.

DPF has updated his post on making improvements at Kiwiblog:

UPDATE: The home of mainly anonymous bloggers, The Standard, has a go at my decision to have even more transparency than I currently do. And what is hilarious, is the post is anonymous.

Also they print an extract from the book which is totally factually wrong. The party they cite was not organised by me, and I did not even invite anyone to attend. I went to a party in Palmerston North. Around 30 to 40 people attended the party, and they can all attest I was not the organiser. It’s just a smear.

The anonymous author at The Standard has in turn responded to that:

[Update: For the record, I note that Farrar now denies the allegation in Dirty Politics that he organised the "Princess Party", though he did attend. As to why writers sometimes choose to remain anonymous, such as me on this occasion, look no further than the climate of intimidation created by the Nats' attack politics machine. Who needs that kind of filth, I don't.]

Who indeed.

And Scotty and Kracklite - I make no apology for holding The Standard to account where I see fit. I think they do more damage than good to their cause - and they've banned me for telling them that. Just as I've held Kiwiblog, Farrar and Slater to account for crap things (in my opinion) they've done. Slater tried to dump on me big time a month ago in his usual vindictive fashion - just after I was banned for posting a different opinion to his on Tania Billingsley and rape issues.

Thing is, in my experience, politics is pretty boring. It's making phone calls, knocking doors, and delivering pamphlets. Or, at higher levels, it's organising other people to do those things. Sometimes you do slightly interesting things, like put out a statement saying that you're in favour of puppies and kittens, and isn't that nice.

Slater often seems to be playing a politics-themed LARP (sorry to any Larpers reading) where the win-condition is to be as awful as possible.

Oh I don't know....I found it wonderfully helpful in clarifying exactly the kind of mindset at work here.

One of the things that comes up often in talking about horrendous acts of misogyny is that the perpetrators assume that everyone believes and behaves they way they do, I think what we have here is the political equivalent.